


Muse

by i_am_op



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22982251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_op/pseuds/i_am_op
Summary: Erik struggles to think up of music, of melodies, of notes that linger in his head until it spills onto his sheet.And then he finds his muse.
Relationships: Raoul de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 5
Kudos: 104





	Muse

Erik takes inspiration from not a single person. People are not worthy to make scores about, people are not worthy to take inspiration from, because people are fickle, wretched creatures that taint something as pure and beautiful as a single melody, a single note, a single score.

Erik is an artist and his hands creates beauty out of simple ink and paper, an outlet of his mind; people are too complicated to be described with just bare marks and paper, they're cruel, they're the incarnation of demons. But Erik has tasted pity, has experienced warmth in the name of Christine, has experienced pity in the eyes of few, so he does not know what humans are. He just knows that he despises their very being and that they equally despise his. 

So he writes music about emotions, writes with the summer air in mind, writes about the changing seasons and the unrelenting passage of time, and he writes about everything but people. 

They don't welcome him and his music does not welcome them either.

They enjoy his music for all its worth, call it a piece of ingenuity, a prodigy when he was just a sideshow attraction as a circus freak, and it's because he does not write his pieces about them, but around them, that they are so.

If he were to make a piece with people are his muses, it would surely be an ugly piece. Beautiful, in its own right, surely, but murder on the ears. 

That is what Erik considers humanity to be. Beautiful in the most depraved ways possible.

Erik does not find a single person worthy of his music, of his inspirations, of the haunting, chilling melodies that play out in his head like an orchestra in an empty stage with no one there to share it with him, that lingers until he writes it out with a pen in messy scrawl as he can't simply take the time to write properly, less it slips from his grasp.

He can write down the melodies, the seraphic voices and instruments in his head, he can have people play his piece but they're far from the perfection he dreams up of, far from the piece that he envisions it to be. 

Raoul is an anomaly in the sense that shatters all of Erik's understanding and rules.

*

For every smile, his mind sings. For every touch, his heart soars. 

For every kiss, he thinks in music, he feels in music, and he's surrounded by music. 

*

His entire being inspires Erik. Every time Erik feels his skin, breathes in his scent, can hear his rhythmic heartbeats, he thinks up of music. Every smile is a score, every movement is a note, every laughter is a melody, and Raoul is his muse from the very way he exists. 

Erik loves music the most out of everything because its the only thing that he has, the only thing he can create that no one else can take away from him, and Raoul has become his music. Raoul is his ink and paper, Raoul is his instrument, Raoul is _music_.

He loves Raoul so much that at times, not even music can truly express the depths of his emotions. He could write a million scores that were made with Raoul's little nuances, every individual intricacies of his, every detail that made Raoul be his Raoul, but it lacks everything to truly describe his feelings, how he views Raoul.

Raoul's laugh is not a trill of his piano keys, nor a soprano note, nor a violin sound; it's his laugh, in its truest and purest form that makes Erik's insides boil over and calm his tittering nerves. Raoul is his muse and he'll forever be his muse because Erik cannot find the perfect melody to describe Raoul, but he'll damn sure try.

He'll spend sleepless nights over crossed out notes, crossed out ideas, trying to truly embody what Raoul was, only to make a piece that barely scratched the surface. He only had his ink and paper and even then, it wasn't enough for Raoul. He could only feel, unable to describe the feeling with words or music, just the way Raoul made him nervous and comfortable, all at once.

"You love it the most," Raoul told him once, running a hand through Erik's hair in his few moments of vulnerability. "I think you don't love anyone as much as you love your music."

Erik does not answer. He only leans into Raoul's touch and enjoy the feeling of fingers cascading around his hair, and hearing a faint song in the back of his mind, already knowing that it couldn't encapsulate this enrapture, this emotion he felt right now.

Raoul is right, Erik thinks. He does not love anyone or anything as much as he loves his music, but Raoul _is_ his music, he can't separate Raoul from the songs that repeat in his mind, like a broken record, and they've meddled into one entity.

*

"I think a little low note here and there would make it more intense," Raoul excitedly says and for someone who's inspired Erik to make some of what he views as his best works, he's the most tone-deaf person out there. He sings off-tune and he has not a single musical bone in his talent, fingers too clumsy and unable to multi-task properly enough to focus on both his hands for an instrument. 

"That would sound off," Erik simply tells him. Fond roots itself into him, but he does not add that fact aloud. 

Raoul, for his part, only looks mildly put off, a bit miffed and more akin to a child being ignored than anything. "One day, I'll learn how to make music too." 

Erik merely chuckles. "I'll hold you to it." 

*

Raoul is his obsession. Sometimes, he lays in his bed, unable to catch sleep, only thinking about Raoul and the wonderful tune that came from him. Raoul exists in music form, not thoughts, because Erik loves music the most and nobody is worth his music, but Raoul. 

Everyone else was just words to him, everyone else was human, flawed creatures that Erik couldn't understand, but Erik can't understand Raoul either, and despite that, he loves the way he can't find a single word, a single theme to describe him.

So he chases after Raoul, pen and paper in hand, writing only useless music that Erik bunches up into a wad of trash before starting anew. Nothing can describe Raoul's perfections, his imperfections, his being, not words and not even music. 

Raoul is his muse, Erik thinks. 

Raoul is his music, Erik knows. 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://i-am-op.tumblr.com/)


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